I recently had to spend a morning in traffic court (don’t ask), so I grabbed one of those books that has been on the shelf forever but never read. This one was The Art of Fact, an anthology edited in 1997 by Ben Yagoda and Kevin Kerrane. Some of the pieces included are, coincidentally, also on my own lists of the “Best of narrative journalism.” (Well, maybe it’s not exactly coincidental. They are, after all, the best.)

In the Preface to The Art of Fact, Yagoda defines this mysterious genre, which might also be called “literary journalism.” I emailed the University of Delaware English professor to see whether his essay is available online. Alas, it isn’t. So I thought I’d summarize it here, and encourage you to buy the book.

Above all, Yagoda argues, literary journalism must be factual. Memoir and essays are out. A work in this genre must involve a process of active fact-gathering, and it must have currency. (If the writer doesn’t get on the story soon after it happens, he says, “the resulting work edges into the realm of history.”) That’s the journalism part.

The literary part involves “thoughtful, artful, and valuable” innovation. The writer casts aside the more constraining conventions of journalism, moving, for example, from quotes gotten in interviews to dialogue gathered in careful observation.

The seminal works Yagoda lists include John Hersey’s Hiroshima (“the first serious work to attempt a novelistic factual narrative on a large scale”), Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Piers Paul Read’s Alive, and Gary Smith’s “Shadow of a Nation.”

Defining the genre further, Yagoda writes subdivides literary journalism into three principal categories:

• Narrative journalism: A “fly-on-the-wall” reporter gathers information about an event and relies on the model of novels or scripts to tell the story. Think Ben Hecht, Jimmy Breslin, Bob Greene, Tracy Kidder.
• First-person reportage: The reporter plays a role in the forefront of the story, understanding that “outsized and unabashed subjectivity can be a superb route to understanding.” Think James Boswell, George Orwell, A. J. Liebling, Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer.
• Style as substance: The writer crafts such a distinctive voice, structure, or even syntax that the work is elevated to the level of literature. Think James Agee, Joseph Mitchell, Joan Didion, John McPhee, David Simon, Svetlana Alexiyevich, Rysard Kapuscinski.

If you, like I, lament the absence of women in these lists, take heart. In addition to Joan Didion and Stalin’s daughter, Yagoda calls out Rebecca West and Lillian Ross as early practitioners of literary journalism. If you are eager to explore the non-Maileresque set, check my slightly more diverse lists of classics.

And, in case you missed it, here is my stab at defining narrative journalism.

Interested in exploring narrative journalism by reading some of it? I’d call these the “classics” among essays and articles. They are listed chronologically, so that you can trace the evolution of the genre over three centuries. The first selection is a chronicle of a day in the life of the Sun King, Louis XIV. (Props to Adam Hochschild for that suggestion.) The last is a two-part series that marries the best of investigative grit with literary writing.

I will continue to add to this list and welcome your suggestions. Feel free to comment, too!

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“The King’s Day,” by the Duc de Saint-Simon. Written in 1715.

(Find it in The Age of Magnificence: The Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, selected, edited and translated by Sanche de Gramont. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963.)

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“Servants—Society—Evening Parties,” by Fanny Trollope. First published in 1832.

(Find it in Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans)

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“The Execution of Troppman,” by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. Written in 1870.

(Find it in The Essential Turgenev, edited by Elizabeth Cheresh Allen. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1994. Available on Google Books.)

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“Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell. First published in New Writing, First series No. 2, in 1936. (Find it in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. London: Secker and Warburg, 1950. It is also available online at netcharles.com, a site devoted to Orwell’s work.)

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“The Third Winter,” by Martha Gellhorn. First published in Collier’s in 1939.

(Find it in The Face of War. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1988.)

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“Here is New York,” by E.B. White. First published in Holiday in 1949.

(Find it in Here is New York. New York: The Little Bookroom, 2000.

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“Dream of Glory on the Mound,” by George Plimpton, in Sports Illustrated, April 10, 1961.

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“I Was a Playboy Bunny,” by Gloria Steinem. First published in Show in 1963.

(Find it in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1983.

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“Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” by Gay Talese. Esquire, April 1966.

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“Namath All Night Long,” Jimmy Breslin. New York, April 7, 1969.

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“The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” by Hunter S. Thompson.

Scanlan’s Monthly, vol. 1, no. 4, June 1970.

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“Hizzoner,” by Mike Royko. Playboy, March 1971.

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“Encounters with the Archdruid III: A River,” by John McPhee. The New Yorker on April 3, 1971.

(Find it at newyorker.com if you are a subscriber, or in The John McPhee Reader, edited by William L. Howarth. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976.

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“The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy,” by Aaron Latham. Esquire, Sept. 1978.

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“Salvadoran Peasants Describe Mass Killing,” by Alma Guillermoprieto. Washington Post, Jan. 27, 1982.

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“Inhaling the Spore: Field trip to a museum of natural (un)history,” by Lawrence Weschler. Harper’s, Sept. 1994.

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“Enrique’s Journey,” by Sonia Nazario. Los Angeles Times, in six parts Sept. 29 to October 7,2002.

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“Learning the Story Behind a Father’s Deepest War Wound,” by Bruce DeSilva. The Associated Press, May 19, 2004.

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“After Life,” by Joan Didion. New York Times Magazine, September 25, 2005.

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“Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army’s Top Medical Facility,” by Dana Priest and Anne Hull. The Washington Post, February 18, 2007. (The three-part series ran on three consecutive days.)